Nondestructive inspection (NDI) of a structure involves thoroughly examining the structure without harming it or significantly disassembling it. Nondestructive inspection is commonly used in the aircraft industry to validate the health (e.g., integrity and fitness) of aircraft structures.
Consider the construction of commercial aircraft having fuselage stiffeners made of composite material. NDI is performed on each stiffener. However, given the number of features to test on each stiffener, the length of each stiffener, the number of stiffeners in the aircraft, and the number of aircraft being manufactured at any given time, there might be miles of stiffener to inspect.
Fast, comprehensive NDI of these stiffeners is needed.